I cannot be expected to work in these conditions. Eeek!
Category: Uncategorized
Ack! Spider! Part Deux
Why does this keep happening to me? Six months ago a wolf spider freaked me out during my shower, and today, well a relaxing bath just isn’t that relaxing when this guy jumps out of the shower curtain as you are cleaning the tub. He was relocated to the front porch in a cup that he refuses to vacate. Enjoy your new home spidey, and stay outside where you belong.
No more angry holidays
I had an amazing, beautiful Mother’s Day. I ran with a dear friend. My daughter made me a sweet card and gave me some yarn so I can make her a hat for when she goes to sleep away camp. She picked out not-itchy yarn to guarantee she will wear it.
I spent a few blissful hours alone before my mom and I had our traditional buy flowers until the car is full then buy some more shopping trip. This is a picture of her car before our last stop where we bought three more flats of plants. (She had one on her lap and one under her feet by the end.) We decided our million dollar idea is to build a double-deck car plant stand.
We went back to my house, unloaded the car, and picked up my daughter. Then after a quick visit with the grandparents little Afthead and I headed home. I cooked dinner, and we enjoyed our evening as a family. There was a card on the dining room table with my name on it. At bedtime I said, “I’m going to open this card from Daddy and then let’s get ready for bed.”
Daddy said, “Oh, that’s not from me. It’s from my brother and sister-in-law.”
My head explodes. My husband and I have this fight at least once a year. We’ve had it on Mother’s Day, my birthday, Valentine’s Day and our anniversary. He has a variety of lame excuses such as he didn’t know he was supposed to buy me a card or he forgot or whatever, but at least once a year he totally ruins a holiday for me. I know it’s going to happen, so I’m mad at myself for letting it bother me, but I feel like I’ve given up so much. I don’t expect a present. I don’t expect flowers (because I have plenty, thanks.) I don’t want chocolate. I don’t expect breakfast in bed. I expect a card which is available at any grocery store, card store, book store, and even most convenience stores. When you can’t even bother to get me a card it’s like a giant middle finger raised with a “you don’t matter at all” tacked on top. My husband knows this. I am not a shrinking violet when he forgets the card. We have been together for twenty years, but this year I gave up. He is never going to remember the damn card.
I went to bed furious at myself for letting him ruin my great day and at him for forgetting the card, again. I made plans to run off with the cute lifeguard at the pool, or the cute bagel store guy, but when I woke up I tossed those ideas and solved the problem: I went to Target and bought my own cards. There was one decent Mother’s Day card left, so I got that. I picked up 4 birthday cards, a few generic “I love you cards” appropriate for Valentine’s Day, our anniversary, or just because he loves me. I bought some “I’m Sorry” cards, because he really freaking needs those. I got some blank cards. The Target bag was full of cards, and when I got home I handed them to him explaining that if he couldn’t even manage to open a drawer and sort through these cards I really would kill him.
He wasn’t offended. My husband is aware of his shortcomings, but he was smart enough to have a card of his own waiting for me. A “thank you” card because he figured that was what he should have said on Mother’s Day, and because the grocery store was out of Mother’s Day cards. I may have to pick up a few more “thank you” cards for him. It was a nice sentiment.
Explaining Irony to a Child
Recently my daughter asked me one of those head scratching kid questions. “Mom, what is irony?”
I don’t know about you, but ever since Ms. Morissette released her hit single “Ironic” I have had a hard time explaining the difference between bad luck and irony. Rain on your wedding day? Not ironic. Behold, last night provided me with the answer to the wee Afthead’s question.
Upon realizing that she had a cut on her foot – that didn’t hurt at all until she saw it – little Afthead went to get the box of first aid supplies. This was unusually independent of her. Normally wounds require drama and snuggling and mommy’s attention. However, as the wee child got her stool and reached up to the top shelf of the linen closet tragedy occurred. A can of pain relieving spray tumbled down bonking her on the head. I came running when I heard the clatter, but before the tears could start I assessed the situation and exclaimed, “This, this is ironic! Remember when you asked mommy what irony was and I couldn’t explain? You getting bonked on the head by pain spray is ironic.”
Amazingly the definition was enough to stop the tears and launch us into a conversation about other ironic first aid situations. Getting a paper cut opening a band aid. Getting an infection from a germ on the outside of the antibacterial spray. Apparently irony is best explained in terms of band-aids and boo-boos.
Fuzzy Green Trees
It’s spring! Do you know how I know? Fuzzy green trees. Today I ripped my eyes away from my walking feet and saw trees covered in green fuzz – too small and too far away to be distinguishable as leaves. Just a hint of leaves. A chartreuse prelude to the green summer will bring. Tiny feathers evolving into shade in just a few weeks. A reminder that warm days are coming.
Even the dorks get a vote
My mother. Her lessons on how the world works are tiny seeds planted throughout my life that grow and change producing new life lessons as the years go by.
In grade school, I think third grade, I got a hankering that I needed to run for Student Council: some minor position, like Treasurer or Vice President. I put my campaign posters, buttons and speech together with the idea that I had a few key people I needed to impress and I’d win for sure. My target were the kids that everyone wanted to sit with at lunch, play with at recess and get invites to their birthday parties. As my mom helped me get ready to run she offhandedly mentioned this life lesson-to-be, “You need to remember, even dorks get a vote.”
I remember being affronted by this at the time. Of course you had to get the popular kids to vote for you because everyone does what the popular kids do. As the popular kids go, so goes everyone else. They were the ones who dictated that Outback Red and Forenza were the things to wear, and the next year when the rest of us wore our new Outback Red sweaters the first day of school they showed up in OP. My mom, what did she know?
Well, she knew a lot. She was head girl of her senior class in high school, so I should have known that she understood a thing or two about rallying people around you. Of course, being a kid growing up in the 1980s, I had no idea what a head girl was and wasn’t curious enough about my foremother’s accomplishments to find out. My only student council campaign run ended when I was beaten by the cool kid running against me. I had neglected to realize that my opponent already had ties to the kids I was trying to impress: the same kids who didn’t notice me on a daily basis.
When I look at the United States national political scene today, I realize that all the candidates – no the major political parties – need to sit down and talk to my mom, because the backlash they are seeing is that the dorks are tired of not getting a vote. The dorks are wising up to the political process and realizing that their right to a vote has been absconded with and they want it back. The dorks are worried about their families. The dorks want to ensure a world where their kids have a chance at a better life than they had. The dorks don’t understand why they keep working harder, longer hours and can afford less each year as the cost of living rises more than their annual piddling raises. The dorks wonder why the people who run our country spend most of their time rubbing elbows with themselves, the top 1%, and lobbyists, and only bother to talk to us when they sit down at a diner on the campaign trail. The dorks really just want to eat their eggs and drink their coffee and not be a sound bite for the candidate’s daily propaganda.
The dorks don’t understand PACs or SuperPACs, but are willing to throw a hard-earned buck or two to Bernie Sanders because he’s a dork like us and maybe he thinks our lives matter. The dorks support Donald Trump because he’s different. He may not say the right thing, but the dorks are tired of polished mealy mouthed politicians and want someone who speaks the language of the people, which is angry and sometimes crass right now. I find it hard to believe that anyone really wants a wall, but everyone wants something big, something different, and something to change because we are frustrated. I can only imagine the backlash if the Republican Convention goes to a brokered convention and the cool kids get to pick whatever cool kid friend they want for the nomination. Talk about denying the dorks their vote.
So listen Hillary, Ted, and whatever Republican candidate that is waiting in the wings to claim the cool kids nomination let me try to channel my mom here. You’ve made a great run at building an exclusive club of insiders that kowtow to the privileged few in this country, but the dorks are tired of being ignored. Even if an establishment person becomes president, it’s not going to make the dorks happy. You may go live in your big white house, but if you don’t start doing your job representing the entire country’s needs and keep pretending that bickering with the other party is your most important job, there is going to be hell to pay, because the dorks are ready. We are ready for a collaborating centrist leader and we will support him or her with our votes, our pocket books and our voices. We are hungry for one brave leader to eschew the big dollars behind the two major parties and stand up and represent us, the no longer silent majority.
It may not happen this year, but it will happen if the dorks continue to be ignored. This isn’t elementary school anymore. We are done with the cool kids.
Photo courtesy of jamelah e. and provided under Creative Commons License. My apologies to the photographer if the dork movement does not correspond to his/her views.
Gratitude for a full life
April started and the Afthead life ramped up to a new level: gardens to plant, soccer games to play, school and work chaos to wrangle, and why not throw in a construction project to top it all off? Things are busy, not passive aggressive whiny busy, but filled with things we love to do. Today as I rode my bike home from dropping my car off for an oil change I thought about all the things I’m grateful for right now:
- For the computer glitch that allowed me to book an oil change appointment even when there were no slots available, and for the kind man who said he would fit me in.
- For the ability to ride my bike home past Craig Hospital where two people were outside in their wheelchairs enjoying the beautiful weather.
- For the stunning flowers this spring made more precious by the snow forecast this weekend.
- For soccer season, the girls on our team, the parents of those girls, and my own daughter’s growth in skill and friendship and enjoyment of the game. Also, because she’s learning how to “suck it up” when things don’t go her way – a life lesson she desperately needs.
- For unexpected bravery ignited by soccer friends which has led to my daughter desperately excited about going to sleep away camp this summer. My baby at eight wants to go to sleep away camp? How does that happen?
- For warm cats in sunshine and remembering how much her brother loved sunbeams.
- For having the means to do this to our basement just because we are tired of having no outlets and two sad overhead lights. It just feels decadent to get rid of the old dropped ceilings and flickering florescent lights and build a real grown up basement…just because we want to.
- For a free cinnamon roll!
- For amazing colleagues who leave mysterious tiny unicorns on everyone’s computer and can be counted on to creatively find a way to keep us going even after losing a huge chunk of funding.
- For the patience to believe my writing is only in hibernation while the rest of the world is waking up and that it too will return after this season of fullness ends.
- For friends, which is a whole series of posts coming. I am so grateful right now for friends.
Happy Thursday readers! I am so grateful for you too!
Happy New Soap Day
Today is one of my favorite days: new soap day. You can look for it on your calendar, but you won’t find it because new soap day isn’t planned. It begins with anticipation as the soap in the shower becomes a sliver and one day slips right down the drain: the soap fish swimming to freedom is the harbinger of new soap day!
Remember the last time I featured this bathtub in my blog? Much scarier!
This time the tiny soap disappeared on a Wednesday morning which meant I got to look forward to new soap day for two full days- exercise and the start of soccer season means I don’t shower on Thursday. It’s been a crazy week filled with moving everything out of our basement to allow for upgraded wiring, presentations at work, the aforementioned beginning of soccer, and the normal ebbs and flows of balancing work and life. Having a little celebration was a gift at the end of a hectic week.
My sad, blurry, empty basement.
New soap day isn’t a holiday that everyone celebrates, in fact I may be the only participant. The soap day festivities begin with opening the medicine cabinet and evaluating all of the odorous soap options, which I love, but may be overwhelming to the more casual soap user. This morning I had handmade, Zum, and pre de Provence soaps to select from – options from Colorado, Missouri, and France. I had hoped for a bar of Saje, but I must have used my last bar of my favorite Canadian soap this winter. (I may further celebrate soap day by placing an order, but that would be an atypical deviation from the normal soap day.) I sorted through my piles of soap sniffing and touching to find the bar that spoke to me. I selected a round bar of mint Zum soap because of the shape, the minty ambiance and the festive bow left over from Christmas.
I hope that you have your own celebration this weekend, whether it’s wine day, latte day, moonlit walk night, or extra long shower morning. Me, I’m going to scrub up and head out for my gold party tomorrow. I think mint goes well with gold, don’t you? That kind of foresight is key to the successful end of soap day!
Dress code rant
It’s been a bit since I’ve ranted here on Afthead, but oh readers, the time has come. One of my biggest rant topics was kindled by an email I received about a work event which said,
I have had a few questions about dress. As these are senior level professionals, we ask that you dress accordingly for the poster session.
Okay. Raise your hand if you know what I’m supposed to wear. Do I have to wear a suit? It’s supposed to snow and my only suit that fits has a skirt – with a really cute kick pleat – that I wear with nice open-toed black pumps. Again though, it’s supposed to SNOW. I only want to break out the suit if it’s required. I have really nice dress slacks, a cardigan sweater and professional boots I could wear too. Is that okay? I have no idea.
This, dear readers, is what makes me crazy about dress codes today. In my mind there are a six dress codes which are understandable by all, or at least consistent enough that you know what you are supposed to wear. They are:
- White Tie
- Black Tie
- Cocktail
- Business
- Business Casual
- Casual
The end. There is no, “As these are senior level professionals, we ask that you dress accordingly” dress code. There is also no cocktail casual or after-six attire, both of which have been suggested to me on recent invitations.
What’s wrong with these?
Cocktail casual: I assume the host meant to convey that the attendee was to wear cocktail attire (sport coats for men, dresses for women) but that the dress is slightly less formal than that. So…can the men skip the sport coat, or should they eschew socks? Are jeans okay? What about footwear? Could nice sneakers and a sport coat suffice? For the women, is this a little black dress, sundress, or a skirt and top function? Is a traditional cocktail dress too fancy, or would that be okay if that’s what you have? Should you wear pumps, or sandals, or are fancy flip flops okay? And hey, let’s be fair. I often enjoy a cocktail in the summer at the park after I go for a run. So my own personal cocktail casual has included run shorts and a tank top. Is that okay? And really, who hasn’t enjoyed a cold beer on a beach in a bathing suit? That’s cocktail casual all the way…
So there might be a little confusion about a cocktail casual event, but probably you’d be okay unless you showed up in running shorts or a bathing suit. Your dress might be too fancy and the men may grouse when someone doesn’t wear a sport coat, but chances are you will be close. A few people will feel awkwardly under-dressed and a few awkwardly overdressed and hey, that’s okay, because the host got to say cocktail casual and he or she is wearing exactly what he or she intended everyone to wear.
Wait. That’s not okay because the point of a dress code is to tell everyone what to wear, not for the host to come up with some new pithy dress phrase and freak their guests out before they even arrive, and then freak them out even more when they show up wearing the wrong thing. Let’s try the other made-up dress code.
After-six attire: Right now it is after-six. I am wearing leggings and a big cozy bulky sweat shirt. My feet have fuzzy socks on them and my hair is in a pony tail. This is today’s after-six attire. Later in the after-six time frame I will change into my pajamas and head to bed. Some days we go grab dinner and I’ll change out of my work clothes and put on my jeans. If it’s a date night, I might even put on a long skirt and some boots. Oh the myriad of after-six outfits I might wear. I wonder which incarnation my host wants me to have on my body when I show up at his/her event. I’ve even been known to run, hike, swim, do yoga, and garden after six o’clock, and those all have different outfits. Hey, hostess with the mostess, I’m so glad to see you in your cute peasant top, capri leggings and espadrilles, but next time can you at least be more specific? Call it 1960s bohemian chic attire or something so I don’t show up thinking it’s a slumber party!
I know that the dress codes are restrictive, but without set rules clothing options run amok. If your event has a clear and specific theme like BBQ, 1980s, ancient Egypt, or roller girl then let your guests know and enjoy the variety of interpretations that show up. If by “as these are senior level professionals, we ask that you dress accordingly” you mean “wear a suit” then please say “business attire is required.” There’s no wiggle room there. If I don’t own a suit at least I walk in knowing I’ll be under dressed and not surprised by my inaccurate interpretation of your suggestion. Join with me. Let’s end the dress suggestions and go back to the tried and true dress codes.
After tomorrow my next event has no dress code but the theme is “Go for the Gold.” I’m thinking about going naked, but painting myself gold like an Oscar statue. (Hopefully my hubby will help me get to those hard to reach places.) Or maybe I’ll just dress in cocktail attire since it’s a fundraiser and I think that’s how people used to dress for such events before we abandoned the six established, well understood dress codes.
photo credit: Women In Tech – 92 via photopin (license)
Spring Break -Afthead style
A few pictures of this weekend’s Afthead spring break in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Because, you know, nothing says “Spring Break” like Minnesota in March.)
Saturday afternoon the Afthead family enjoyed watching their favorite hockey team, the DU Pioneers, beat Boston University. Our seats were amazing and my kiddo was brave enough to reach her hand out and high five all the big college kids as they went on and off the ice. Her growing bravery makes this momma’s heart proud.
Sunday morning the little Afthead enjoyed a small hotel room Easter egg hunt, followed by a bonus egg hunt at our brunch restaurant. Since she was the only kid in the entire restaurant she rocked that extra egg hunt!
Next, the wee Afthead made friends with Linus and Sally, who had much larger aftheads than she.
Off to the Science museum, which is a must visit if you are in St. Paul. Here the kiddo Afthead controls a T-Rex forehead. Chomp!
Then another forehead adventure as each of us had our faces displayed on the face mask of a three story tall astronaut. That’s one small step for Aftheads, and one giant leap for museum attendees!
Finally another hockey game and another win for DU! They are off to the NCAA Frozen Four. Hopefully they’ll do okay in the next round without Afthead high fives.
Monday we enjoyed a trip to see Lake Harriet and the memorial bench my husband’s family bought for his aunt when she passed away six years ago. She was one of my best friends, so the visit was sad, but I was glad for the opportunity to remember her with my daughter.
Happy Spring Break to those of you who get to enjoy such weeks!
Afthead 